francene--blog. Year 2013
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April 25th

4/25/2013

 
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Desire for cheap prices causes another catastrophe.

In the early news, a report tells of a frantic search for survivors under way at a building outside the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, which collapsed on Wednesday morning, killing at least 96 people. After the worst disaster in Bangladesh's industrial history, casualties are still rising. Tens of thousands of weeping family members are gathered at the site. Apparently, over 2,000 people were inside the building, which collapsed like a pancake within minutes. Local hospitals were overwhelmed with more than 1,000 people injured. Read the full story here.

Police said the factory owners had ignored warnings not to allow their workers into the building after cracks were noticed on Tuesday. The cracks even attracted the interest of local news stations, prompting questions over Bangladesh's chronically poor safety standards.


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Bangladesh has one of the largest garment industries in the world, providing cheap clothing for major Western retailers which benefit from its widespread low-cost labor. Clothing supply firms from Canada, USA, around Europe, and the UK, used the businesses inside the building. In a highly competitive market, pressure from retailers to keep costs down was in part responsible for unsafe conditions.

Lengths of textile that were earlier being cut into garments—many destined for Western consumers—were now being used as makeshift slides to evacuate survivors and corpses. The owners of the factory are now said to have gone into hiding.

If Western companies really want safety standards to improve, they need to pay higher prices.

In these times of rising prices, it is hard to accept increased costs. One more thing could tilt the balance for struggling families. Here's the question we should all face: Do we care enough about these poor Bangladeshi workers, who only want to earn enough money to keep their family fed, to put our hand in our pocket and bring out more cash for our clothing?


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Corinne Rodrigues link
4/24/2013 07:34:32 pm

The greed goes both ways, Francene. It's not just the end consumers, but the factory owners too who want to earn the maximum and take the least responsibility. Sadly, it happens in India too.

Francene Stanley link
4/25/2013 02:50:42 am

How true. My husband just said that the owners would take any extra cash charged for garments. Sigh.

Mystic Comfort link
4/24/2013 07:36:16 pm

How awful!! SO sorry for the grief and fear of all those families.

Francene Stanley link
4/25/2013 02:53:42 am

They must be devestated.

Sharon link
4/24/2013 08:25:36 pm

This is so sad. The government of that country can't be excused from this disaster. There have to be minimum standards and those were not met. Really a tragedy.

Francene Stanley link
4/25/2013 02:55:03 am

They've called for stronger building regulations. Let's hope they do something about it rather than talk.

Kama
4/24/2013 08:40:57 pm

Maybe the secret is a matter of paying a bit more and owning less. We seem to live in a society that is obsessed with owning more and more.

Francene Stanley link
4/25/2013 02:57:38 am

You're so right. I think we could wear the clothing we have already or even, God forbid, mend it. But that wouldn't help the workers.

Amy link
4/24/2013 10:03:02 pm

Francene,
I hadn't heard about this yet. What a catastrophe! I'm so sorry for this people, and distressed that the safety standards aren't higher.

Francene Stanley link
4/25/2013 02:58:36 am

The poor of this world seem to suffer the most.

Anita-Clare Field link
4/25/2013 03:40:11 am

One of the saddest things I have ever seen is 3-6 year old children in Egypt being screamed at to work harder by their rich, fat factory owners. Deprived of an education and paid nothing. Evil

AMummysLife link
4/25/2013 05:53:56 am

Such a sad waste of life! Why do we let greedy people get away with things like this!


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    Author

    Francene Stanley, author of many published novels. If you like my writing, why not consider purchasing one of my books? You'll see them on the sidebar below.
    Born in Australia, I moved to Britain half way through my long life.

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